EUWAA Update from the WAA Board of Directors

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Since summer is nearly here and since I am trying to be more European in my approach towards business (read: wanting to take long holidays during the summer) I have been somewhat lazy in my regular blogging (as opposed to my lazy-blogging on Twitter, where I have also been somewhat lazy …) But thinking about being more European brought my mind around to my idea of a European Web Analytics Association (EUWAA) that I proposed before the Emetrics Summit in San Francisco last month.

Since that post a few things have happened:

My good friend Mr. Jim Sterne, Chairman of the Board at the WAA held a nice meeting over drinks in London to discuss the idea with Europeans in attendance. You can read Jim’s summary of the meeting and some interesting notes about the WAA Board of Directors over at Jim’s blog.

I certainly wish I could have been at the meeting since it sounds like it was pretty productive. Still, I have one concern as I read the summary document provided by Board Member Vicky Brock — it sound like the pro-EUWAA conversation revolved around multiple local WAA chapters in Europe as opposed to a single, pan-European organization able to respond to the needs of “chapters” across the continent.

Perhaps I’m just reading the document incorrectly, and hopefully if I am one of the participants will write me and clarify the point. But if I am interpreting this correctly, I think this is a dangerous idea and one very likely to fail.

I suspect that the organizational process and volunteer commitment to create and maintain multiple local WAAs would be far greater than is reasonable. Were this not the case, I suspect the WAA would have a local presence here in the U.S., instead of ceding most local web analytics efforts to Web Analytics Wednesday. Web Analytics Wednesday works because it is A) low effort and B) high value. I suspect the establishment of several mini-WAA’s across Europe would be the exact opposite, at least in the short- to mid-term.

Instead, I would encourage those European’s taking the lead on this issue (Neil, Vicky, Rene Dechamps Otamendi from OX2) to focus on first creating a single, pan-European organization able to provide reasonable organizational structure for all Europeans. A single organization should be able to:

Fundamentally the idea of a single EUWAA was put forth to reflect the need for more value and more opportunities for European members of our global community. And while I have tremendous faith in Rene, Neil, and Vicky, I suspect that many more people will be necessary to provide the level of value I think the WAA is capable of providing.

According to the document, the WAA is planning to have a vote of Europeans in the next few weeks designed to gauge member (and potential member) response, theoretically to the idea of a separate EUWAA. It will be very interesting to see how the questions in this survey are worded and how the response is managed, but I suspect this process is in good hands.

Vicky concluded her letter with the following statement:

“Every action item in this report needs volunteers to step forward. If you would like to see any or all of the above come to fruition, please find something (research, identify, explore, review) and raise your hand.”

Nothing could be more true. Any association like the WAA or EUWAA depends on volunteer action for its lifeblood. Hopefully all of you who commented on my last post, and all of you who wrote me directly in support of the idea of a EUWAA, will take Vicky’s point to heart and step up when the time is right.

Since I’m not European I suspect my involvement from this point on will be tangential at best, although I’m not opposed to volunteering my own time, but I welcome your comments and critique of the ideas I put forth in this post. Also, if you’d like to know when the pan-European vote on this subject is, and if you’re not a WAA member, please don’t hesitate to comment or write me directly and I will make sure your email address is passed along.

I must say I am tremendously encouraged by the work that Jim, Seth, Neil, Vicky, Rene, and many others have already contributed to the general idea of providing more member value in Europe, especially in such a short period of time. I only hope the momentum will continue towards a product that everyone involved can be as proud of as Rand, Greg, Jim, Bryan, Seth, and the rest of the WAA founders surely are of their work.

11 Comments

ericJune 3rd, 2008

Steve: Welcome home! I hope your trip to Bora Bora (site of the first ever Tahitian Web Analytics Wednesday, how was that?) was nice and relaxing.

Now it’s time to get to work.

I get your point about local in Europe, well taken, but we agree about the need for a pan-European organization at the top. Perhaps I’m thinking about this wrong but it seems like the difference between a bunch of little WAAs and a coordinated effort.

The pan-Europe Board would be able to set up the functional process and essentially support the local groups, kind of like Demystified supports the local WAW hosts around the globe. Help where help is needed, etc.

I hope you’ll be able to take the time to support Neil, Vicki, and Rene as they field the survey. I’m sure your input would be welcome and I’d love to hear your thoughts as that goes into the field.

I have only been back from vacation/honeymoon for a short space of time as you know and my backlog was considerable so this is the first time I’ve really had time to get back to this.

I wish the timing was better so I could’ve attended the meeting on May 22nd (when I was still on a beach sipping Chivas Regal on the rocks.. but what can you do? I’ve got over it!).

My interpretation is this;

Local chapters have to exist and I just think the people in the meeting have recognized this.

A Pan-European organization and board should be set-up to administer/organize the local chapters but it’s necessary to have the country coordinators and people on the ground.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting multiple local chapters in any more capacity than is currently organized. The way the current International committee runs things is to organize and support local efforts. For instance regional coordinators and co-chairs attend a monthly meeting to discuss how things are planned in various countries for the upcoming month. We’ve been doing this since the beginning and helped organize a bunch of different things. What I interpret from Vicky’s document is that a more formal approach to this would begin in Europe.

Certainly I wouldn’t agree that it is wise to run independent country non-profit organizations as in most cases member numbers per country/region don’t justify it.

I agree with all of the bullet points you list and I don’t see any reason why a EuroWAA couldn’t be set-up to be provide the focus which is lacking at the moment.

I would argue for any non-profit HQ at Brussels because the time zone is slightly better for the majority of Europe than London or Helsinki (which would be my other choices) and I feel any association we form has to deal in euros (not pounds or crowns).

Web Analytics Wednesday works as you rightly state but it’s because of the local managers setting up and coordinating directly with sponsors in many cases. Additionally things like local languages can’t be translated from (for instance) Brussels because the resources simply won’t be cost effective. Volunteers can often do the work locally much better.

I called for the vote initially so I’m pleased to see that it will be the first point of action. In my view it is logical to get all the European members perspective (rather than simply the loud ones like me 🙂 before proceeding further. Once the poll result is known then we can take discuss the necessary actions to move forward.

I agree with Steve: “A Pan-European organization and board should be set-up to administer/organize the local chapters but it’s necessary to have the country coordinators and people on the ground”.

Now, Brussels or London or Helsinki? without surprise my preference would indeed go out to the first for indeed time zone reasons but also because it says Europe. Choice could also be Luxembourg or Strasbourg as they also represent Europe officially but getting there remains a pain, believe me!

What I’m most worried about actually is the lack of representativity from the different countries.
Of the above meeting mentioned, 7 people are from the UK (hope you won’t mind Vicky that I put Scotland in the UK).
But Europe is by far not represented by the UK & comparing the Netherlands to Belgium in terms of WA, it’s clear that the Dutch talk a lot more about A/B & MVT than for example Belgium and that France, Italy, Germany, Denmark & also the UK are entirely different ball games.

Thus it’s important to find those bodies to support local initiatives while assuring some kind of support & coordination from a centralized point.

You have my support 😉

So, how was Bora Bora, Steve? and congrats from Brussels 😉

Jacques WarrenJune 4th, 2008

I don’t see what’s wrong with national WAAs. Hell, we should have one in Canada! But that’s not for me to say; I’m not European.

Question: in the event of a pan-European entity, would the EMetrics Summit still be its official(s) event(s)?

ericJune 4th, 2008

Aurelie: Very nice to hear from you again! Are you in Spain this week with Avinash and Rene? I suspect that the physical location of EUWAA would matter very little, much the same as it matters very little here in the U.S. Since we’re all virtual, our home is on the Internet! 😉

Your second point is more important, but it goes back to Vicky’s astute comment: to get better representation from other European countries, we all have to work harder to create awareness! Hopefully the survey will give the working group a better idea of:

Where interested Europeans are?

Who is interested who is already WAA and not WAA?

What people are most interested in?

Not my place to craft the survey but that is certainly what I would ask (among other things)

It’s great to know this initiative has your support!

Jacques: Interesting point. Do you feel like Canada is poorly represented in the WAA or Canadian’s are seeing less value from current WAA activities? I ask because there is a Canadian on the Board and you have your own Emetrics …

I think if the EUWAA were a separate-but-related entity they would have every right to decide what conferences were “official” and which were merely “supported” (or whatever the new language says …) Doesn’t that make sense? What do you think?

(Yes, we don’t get a vote … but it’s an excellent question!)

Thanks to both of you for commenting. One of my measures of success is “Global Thought-Leader Comment Rate” and this post is currently running 100% thanks to you three. I’m good with lower numbers, mind you, but that’s a good rate 😉

@Eric: Thanks, the first ever WAW in the polynesian islands was attended by two of us and we discussed the lack of web savvy in the area. They still use 28.8KB modems to connect to the rest of the world and most of the websites there are run by the hotels centrally (in France as it happens). It took about 30 seconds to decide to change the subject and get another drink. 🙂 There is a picture here of the event for those of you that are
FaceBook friends;

I think we’re in agreement on the vision of how the pan-European WAA would function.

@Aurelie (and Rene) I think I already congratulated you on the youngest member of the WAA already but if not congrats again on becoming parents to Luca. A born analyst! 🙂

Bora bora was magic. Very pricey but worth every penny. The average day was breakfast around 7am, back to the over water bungalow for a early morning swim, sit around chilling in the sun (or snorkeling, or watching fish swim around or reading) for a few hours, lunch, followed by some activity in the afternoon – shark and ray feeding for instance followed by world class seafood in the evening.

Every day unbelievable weather and the views were like the ones I’ve only previously seen on TV with white beaches palm trees and coconuts. Snorkeled in the ocean to a 60M depth at one point and could see the bottom. Awesome.

Oh yes, er, WAA stuff, got sidetracked :).

I considered all the locations you mention. Helsinki is selfish but Finland is well represented in members, similarly the UK but I think both locations are not ideal. Brussels is ideally located and is the capital of Europe even if I can think of much better European cities to travel to.

Stockholm could be another option (large events there) but they deal in Swedish crowns. I feel that it’s wise to keep all the financial stuff in Euros because the countries not dealing with the currency directly can at least easily handle it. Therefore it makes sense having a Euro based country running the admin.

I agree that Europe should also be represented by more countries because of the diversity of needs.

[…] is not related to the WAA. I strongly believe as I have commented following the EUWAA discussion (Eric, Jim) that the WAA should be united in diversity (act local, think global). We can have regional or […]

Some of you might be interested in learning that there will be an inception conference call for the WAA Research Committee European sub-committee taking place on Wednesday 11th June 2008 at 1400 hrs (Iceland)/1500 hrs (UK, Ireland, and Portugal)/1600 hrs (Western Europe).

The purpose is not to thrash out the issues that are whirling around in the thread above but rather to establish a WAA research structure that can have a European focus and serve us in the future on a range of issues.

The emphasis of the committee is on contributing and so I’m really interested in hearing from people that want to become actively involved in finding out the answers and give us the firm base of evidence to help take our industry forward in Europe.

I’m sure some of the current issues while be touched on but I’m also interested in the more everyday issues that affect us all and for about which we might well be lacking useful information.

Stephen: A great idea! As I’ve said, if nothing more comes of the EUWAA idea than a greater interest, participation, and level of value for European (and all) WAA members then this will still have been a great effort.

“How are you communicating about the research meeting to WAA members?” – the honest answer is…with difficulty hence why I’m hijacking blogs like yours and Rene’s to get the message out. Ideas gratefully received though!

I’m loath to go down the route of spamming all WAA at this stage so it might take a small time to build up an active body but it’s not as though it’s a once only opportunity! I think that whatever happens on the European scene, it will always need evidence to back it up so I don’t imagine that the need for us will disappear…

ericJune 9th, 2008

Stephen: Hmm, too bad you don’t have an all European list of WAA members who you have polled for their interests so you could reach out to them proactively … just a thought 😉

Eric T. Peterson is author of Web Analytics Demystified, Web Site Measurement Hacks and The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators and a long-time member of the web analytics community. He frequently presents on web analytics and is often cited in articles about digital measurement. In the past Mr. Peterson has worked with well-known brands like Microsoft, HP, Cisco, Best Buy, Disney, LEGO, CBS and CBS News, and ESPN. More recently, Mr. Peterson has founded The Analysis Exchange, a completely new way to gain experience with digital measurement.
As an employee of Analytics Demystified Eric is a member of the Digital Analytics Association (DAA), an Adobe Business Partner, and a Google Analytics Certified Partner.